This application relates to cartridges for staplers, and in one important aspect to cartridges for staplers of the type used in the medical field to join disunited tissues.
The art is replete with staplers having cartridges from which staples are fed seriatim into the mechanisms of the staplers. Typically such a stapler includes a housing having a passageway with an outlet opening, and having an inlet opening through which the cartridge feeds staples into the passageway. A ram is mounted on the housing for sliding movement between a load position with the ram spaced from the inlet opening to allow the cartridge to feed a staple into the passageway, and an eject position at which the ram pushes the staple out of the outlet opening so that the staple will engage the structure to be stapled, and may be clenched either against an anvil positioned on the opposite side of the structure or around an anvil projecting across the end of the passageway.
Such a stapler adapted for use in the medical field is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,480. The stapler described in that application is of the type having an anvil projecting across the end of the passageway, and is activated by manually squeezing together toggle linkages on opposite sides of the path for the ram to move the ram to its eject position so that it will clench the staple around the anvil. The cartridge for supplying staples to the inlet opening projects generally at right angles to the direction of travel of the ram close to the outlet opening for the passageway and thus can obstruct vision of a person using the stapler to join disunited tissues, particularly if the cartridge is designed to contain a large number of staples.